When
a relaxing vacation
seems further away than
Timbuktu, here's how to
make the best of the
little time you have.
Your most important
carry-on item? The
mind-set you bring to
the trip.
One
of my prized possessions
is a key-chain pendant
with a heart
superimposed on a map of
Greenland. It’s a
cheesy trinket, but it
has real power. Each
time I unlock a door,
the memories come in
staccato bursts. A
clutch of brightly
painted buildings thrown
onto a snarl of rocky
hillocks. Evening sun
reflecting off
slate-blue sea.
Greenland can surprise
even jaded travelers,
and it still holds a
piece of my soul.
Most
of us have our own
private Shangri-las—vacation
memories that carry us
through the drabbest
hours of the 24/7 grind.
Increasingly, though, we
have to make do with
memories alone.
Americans are suffering
from "vacation
deficit disorder,"
in author Joe Robinson's
all too-accurate
diagnosis. Work hours in
the U.S. have increased
by more than 12 percent
in the past three
decades, and the average
American is allotted a
paltry 9.6 days of
vacation per year.
Incredibly, many of us
don't even take full
advantage of this slim
window: Travel industry
data indicate that about
15 percent of vacation
days in the U.S. go
unused.
However
happy this may make our
employers, we pay a
stiff price for the lack
of quality downtime. In
a nine-year study,
Brooks Gump, an
associate professor of
psychology at the State
University of New York,
Oswego, found that men
who skipped vacation for
five consecutive years
were 30 percent more
likely to suffer heart
attacks than those who
took at least one week's
annual leave. Even
skipping one year's
vacation was associated
with an elevated risk of
heart disease.
Researchers
aren't sure why people
who take more vacations
are less likely to die
of heart attacks, but
they have three
theories: the time with
family and friends; the
escape from everyday
worries; and the simple
anticipation of a few
stress-free days.
So
what's a wage slave to
do? Faced with a
scowling boss and a
mountain of work,
scheduling a
soulsoothing two-week
trip seems out of the
question. The good news:
There are ways to make
our downsized vacations
restful and restorative.
Don't
Worry About Meltdown
Back Home
On
vacation some people are
determined to keep the
cell phone charged up
and ready to rip
wherever they go. After
all, they say, wouldn't
you want to know if the
dog runs away or your
house burns down?
In
a word: No. Sometimes
ignorance really is
bliss. That's because
there's a link between
cardiovascular
reactivity and
vigilance. The former is
a laboratory measure of
how your heart responds
to minor stressors.
"It's kind of like
being jumpy," Gump
says. The latter
reflects how much you're
on the alert for
potential problems. To
some extent, being
vigilant in an
unfamiliar environment
is natural, but one type
of tension is avoidable:
the nagging concern that
the office may call at
any time. To most
effectively reduce
cardiac stress, plan a
vacation where your
employers don't even
know how to get hold of
you. Leave the phone at
home, and resist the
temptation to check
e-mail.
A
generation ago multiweek
road trips were common,
but today more and more
people fly—and shorten
their vacations
accordingly. Half of
American travel is now
done on two- or
three-day minivacations,
says Robinson.
